Ezra Klein Discusses Can’tor FAIL on The Ed Show

In Eric Can’tor’s hyper-ideological, immune-to-facts world, Ronald Reagan is a mythological hero who never compromised on his principles. In reality, as pointed out on The Ed Show, Reagan raised taxes 12 times in his presidency, including a 3-year, $100 billion tax hike (largest since World War II) and the largest corporate tax hike in history to that point. Reagan, of course, also backtracked and ended up negotiating with the Soviet Union (offering to give up all our ballistic missiles, no less!), which he had earlier called “the Evil Empire.” Reagan also signed a large-scale amnesty for “illegal immigrants” into law, expanded government greatly, racked up huge amounts of debt, and pretty much violated every “principle” Eric Can’tor and his merry band of Teahadists holds dear. It’s truly astounding that someone this hollow, this ignorant, and this mindlessly ideological can be House Majority Leader, in line to possibly be the next Speaker of the House. What an embarrassment (to Virginia, humanity, etc.).

Do you believe, Lowell, that Eric Cantor actually does not KNOW the history you site? I don’t know the man, but my sense is that the dishonesty of today’s Republicans runs so deep that with leaders like Cantor it is less a matter of their own ignorance than of their preying on –and cultivating– the ignorance of their followers.

Another question along the same lines.

Do you believe that Cantor is motivated by an ideology? When people are genuinely governed by an ideology, their positions and conduct are consistent in being aligned with that ideology. Does Cantor show such consistency? My sense about the Republicans in general these days is that all that is consistent is their opportunism –“What will gain advantage for me and the interests I serve?”– and that they hold no genuine ideas or principles. (They even vote against their own ideas, if supporting them would interfere with their strategy for gaining partisan advantage.)

But my questions to you are genuine: I actually struggle to discern where in this picture there’s any sincerity of belief, and where begins the deliberate deception and manipulation.

Teddy Goodson

is that the Speaker is on the short list of succession, number 3 in line for the Presidency, in the event….